Technical Field
The embodiments herein generally relate to wireless technologies, and more particularly to WiFi and Bluetooth® technologies.
Description of the Related Art
A contention-based protocol (CBP) is a telecommunications media access protocol allowing several users to share the same broadcast medium (e.g., spectrum) by defining the events that must occur when multiple transmitters simultaneously try to access the same channel, and establishing rules for allowing a transmitter to provide reasonable chances for other transmitters to operate. The simultaneous transmissions may result in collisions whereby multiple data transfer demands are simultaneously made on equipment that can handle only one transmission at any given time. In order to help with collision avoidance or recovery after collisions occur, the CBP protocol includes procedures for initiating new data signal transmissions, determining whether the channel is available or unavailable (e.g., state of the channel), and managing retransmissions of data signals in the event of a busy channel. Such protocols are helpful when the wireless standards are the same. However, when the wireless standards are different (e.g., WiFi and Bluetooth® technologies), then the protocols are not sufficient. For example, a bias occurs in WiFi contention and a WiFi user has less chance to access data than other WiFi users without Bluetooth®. Accordingly, there remains a need for a new technique that eliminates this bias and permits media contention in the presence of conflicting (e.g., different wireless standard) wireless operation.